Woman charged with 4 felonies after MSP says she slipped cuffs, stole cruiser

MOORLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — The woman accused of biting a state police trooper, managing to free herself from handcuffs and then stealing a cruiser to lead police on a chase has been charged with four felony counts.

Cortney Morey, 35, was charged Monday with assaulting a police officer causing injury, auto theft, third-degree fleeing and eluding a police officer and malicious destruction of police property.

The assault and vandalism charges are both four-year felonies and the auto theft and fleeing charges are five-year felonies.

“What’s alleged to have occurred here is very serious,” Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Maat said. “The stealing of a police car, to begin, with presents a significant threat to our public. To then lead police officers on a high speed chase also reflects a tremendous danger to our public.”

It happened on Hall Road between Moorland and Goebel roads in Moorland Township, north of Ravenna.

Michigan State Police say troopers responded around 8:30 p.m. Saturday to a domestic call and that when they tried to arrest Morey, she fought back and bit a trooper. Eventually, they cuffed her and put her in a cruiser while they talked with other people on the scene.

The Muskegon County Prosecutor’s Office said Morey was sitting in the front passenger’s seat of the cruiser when she got free of her handcuffs and moved over to the driver’s seat. MSP said Morey took off in the cruiser, leading police on a chase. She ultimately crashed on W. 100 Street where it dead-ends west of S. Green Avenue in Newaygo County’s Bridgeton Township, about 8.5 miles as the crow flies from where the chase started. Morey was arrested.

A trooper sustained minor injuries, MSP said.

Morey’s bond was set at $20,000 cash or surety.

“They took my kids because of my mental instability. I’m mentally unstable,” she told the court during arraignment Monday.

Court records show she was charged in April with misdemeanor assault and battery, with prosecutors saying the victim in the case was a friend or acquaintance. That case is still working its way through the court system.

MSP records show she also has a history of impaired driving in Muskegon and Ottawa counties, with charges dating back to 2008. She also previously pleaded to misdemeanor charges of malicious destruction of property, driving without insurance, unlawful use of a plate or title and driving on a suspended or revoked license.

“Any prior criminal history is going to have an impact on how a case is ultimately resolved, and that criminal history can be considered as part of the seriousness of the offense as well as the prior record, the ‘dangerousness’ of this defendant,” Maat said. “So it will certainly be considered at the time of any potential sentencing that may occur in this case. Prior criminal history is one of the things the court’s required to look at in determining and fashioning and appropriate sentence.”

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